


Brick by Brick

by Amlovelies



Series: Fall for Unit Bravo Prompt Pieces [20]
Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Introspection, Love Triangle, Self-Esteem Issues, and it leads to fights/bad feelings with Nate, childhood neglect, dinah and rebecca have a very bad relationship, lt route, parental neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27732454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amlovelies/pseuds/Amlovelies
Summary: It wasn’t as if Dinah enjoyed not having a family. There were times she felt that void like a physical ache. An empty yawning need for connection and nurturing she kept hidden and feared would never be filled.It had taken years to build up the wall she’d placed between herself and Rebecca. She sometimes wondered if Nate believed this was just another example of Dinah’s legendary stubbornness. If only he could understand how each brick was laid by Rebecca’s own hands.
Relationships: Female Detective/Adam du Mortain, Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell
Series: Fall for Unit Bravo Prompt Pieces [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2002750
Kudos: 11





	Brick by Brick

**Author's Note:**

> written for wayhavenmonthly's Fall for Unit Bravo over on Tumblr  
> Day 20: Parent

Dinah is tired of having this conversation. She is tired of feeling like she was somehow the villain in all of this. The unspoken message that Rebecca deserved a chance to make things right as if she hadn’t wasted Dinah’s entire childhood.

It's the unspoken admonishment in Nate’s eyes. The often-repeated message, “family is important,” and “you should try.”

It wasn’t as if Dinah enjoyed not having a family. There were times she felt that void like a physical ache. An empty yawning need for connection and nurturing she kept hidden and feared would never be filled.

It had taken years to build up the wall she’d placed between herself and Rebecca. She sometimes wondered if Nate believed this was just another example of Dinah’s legendary stubbornness. If only he could understand how each brick was laid by Rebecca’s own hands.

There was every missed school event: the sixth-grade science fair, the state finals for academic decathlon, the valedictorian speech she spent weeks fretting over. Rebecca was absent for everyone, and that hurt. Dinah tried to pretend she didn’t care, but she always looked for her mother’s face in the bleachers, hoping that this time she’d done well enough. She’d hoped that this time her achievements would be worthy of her mother’s time and attention.

There were the moments when she needed a mother’s comfort: when she’d broken her wrist falling from the monkey bars, being stuck as the third wheel at her Junior Prom, and when her relationship with Bobby shattered around her.

Dinah had grown to hate the sound of the click at the beginning of her mother’s voicemail. The voice was always so calm and professional, so cold and distant. It was the only part of Rebecca she could consistently reach.

Even when Rebecca was physically present it was like she was in another world. There were times Dinah would find her mother’s eyes on her face, see her flinch away and close herself off. Dinah spend hours comparing her face to her small collection of photos of her father. She learned to hate the way her eyes turned down at the corners and the upturned tip of her nose that marked her as Rook’s daughter. Rebecca wouldn’t ever speak about him, of course she would avoid a face that served as a reminder.

Whenever the tension grew high between her and Rebecca Dinah wished she could explain it to Nate. She wished she could sit him down and show him the bitter broken pieces of herself. She wouldn’t. For all his proclamations that he wished to know her every thought and detail she knew better. After all Rebecca was only interested in being close to her now that she was useful, professional, mature, why should it be any different with Nate?

It wasn’t only fear that made Dinah keep those parts of her hidden. There was also the small flame of anger and resentment that would spring up in response to his words. The Agency, and by extension Nate, had gotten all the attention she’d so desperately craved. Nate knew Rebecca better than Dinah ever would. Had Nate been in the room when Rebecca had sent Dinah’s desperate call to voicemail? The one she’d made after the first person she’d given her heart to had betrayed all her trust? Rebecca had put the job first as she always did. Dinah had to pick up the broken pieces of her heart and her academic career alone.

Dinah knows it’s not fair him, so she swallows it down. All the pain and anger and loss stay tied up in her chest, and she tells him, “I’m trying. It’s just hard.”

Nate smiles, always kind, and nods, always understand, and they move past it. It’s a pattern that it already beginning to repeat.

Perhaps it would be fine if not for the understand she finds in Adam’s eyes. There are many things that she finds in Adam’s eyes: understanding, longing, and an emotion she dares not name. She wonders what he sees in her gaze and if it would prove her fear that she is undeserving of Nate’s affection. Maybe it would prove that Rebecca was right to have stayed away all those years that perhaps Dinah only brings pain to those she seeks to love.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on Tumblr @amlovelies
> 
> comments make my day :)


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